Vijay Singh's lawsuit against the PGA Tour has opened a can of worms regaring the Tour's drug testing policy. / Jack Gruber, USA TODAY Sports

by Christine Brennan, USA TODAY Sports

by Christine Brennan, USA TODAY Sports

Vijay Singh is one of the least sympathetic figures in sports, and deservedly so. He openly rooted for Annika Sorenstam to miss the cut when she made the ground-breaking decision to play a PGA Tour event in 2003. He was suspended after being accused of changing his scorecard to make the cut at the 1985 Indonesian Open. And even though he now has been cleared by the PGA Tour of any wrongdoing, he did use a product, deer antler spray, that the Tour warned in August 2011 included a banned substance.

On Wednesday morning, Singh outdid himself, suing the PGA Tour on the eve of its showcase event, The Players Championship, over the way it handled the doping allegations against him, saying it exposed him "to public humiliation and ridicule for months." This from a man who was cleared of the allegations. One can only imagine the lawsuit he would have filed if he had actually been found guilty and suspended for 90 days.

At first glance, this would appear to be bad news for the Tour, and not so good for Singh either, who isn't going to win any new golfing buddies by taking on the entity that gives all of them their fabulous lifestyles.

But taking a second look, this might be just the rude awakening the pristine world of golf needs to the often dark and messy but vitally important world of international drug testing. Professional golf is relatively new to the drug testing business, beginning in 2008. (Drug testing at the Olympic Games began in earnest in 1972.) When pro golf started testing, there were those in the sport who maintained it didn't need drug testing because the players are so honorable they call penalties on themselves and always do the right thing. Yes, they actually said that, and apparently really believed it. This of course was before the 2013 Masters.

Some golfers even went so far as to complain publicly about the policy of having to produce a urine sample while being watched by a trained drug tester, calling it an invasion of privacy. Olympians such as Michael Phelps, Gabby Douglas and Abby Wambach would call it something else: normal operating procedure for international drug testing.

If multi-millionaire pro golfers think they have it tough now with in-competition testing, reading the labels on supplements and trying to figure out which substances are on the banned list and which are not, just wait until the year leading up to the 2016 Olympic Games. Remember the joy in the golf world when it became an Olympic sport? Be careful what you wish for. Blood testing is coming for all those male and female golfers who are candidates for their Olympic teams. So is random, knock-on-the-door, year-round testing. This is what Olympians go through for the privilege of representing their country at the Winter and Summer Games. NBA players in the Olympics have been dealing with it for some time. Now, it will be the golfers' turn.

Even with its current starter-kit drug testing plan, the past few years have not gone entirely smoothly for the PGA Tour. In 2009, Doug Barron became the first player suspended under the Tour's anti-doping policy when he tested positive for high levels of testosterone. He sued, the case was settled and he returned to the game.

Now there's Singh. He wasn't suspended and he still sued. So the PGA Tour is batting 1.000: two high-profile doping cases, two lawsuits. If this pace continues ‚?? and why wouldn't it? ‚?? the PGA Tour would be wise to consider becoming the first major professional sport to turn over the administration of its drug testing program to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, the independent American drug police who recently brought Lance Armstrong to justice.

When Armstrong filed a lawsuit, he didn't sue USA Cycling, he sued USADA. Golf, Major League Baseball and all the other big pro sports trying to do it all would be well-served to let the true doping professionals run their entire drug programs, and let them take the heat for it as well.

But that isn't likely to happen any time soon. Which means sports officials whose sole job should be to administer their sport and promote their athletes now are in the business of doing all that as well as trying to catch their cheating players in the most intricate game of cat and mouse the sports world has ever seen.